Thursday, October 2, 2014

Book Review of Dying to Forget by Trish Marie Dawson

Goodreads Summary: "...With trembling fingers, I reach up and touch the hard and chiseled contours of his chest while Ryan's large and strong hands roam over my entire body, feeling and squeezing everything. I've never been touched like this before and my insides are starting to freak out.

"I want you, Piper," he murmurs into my neck.

My mouth drops open in surprise and even though my brain seems to be telling me to jump and run out of the room, I’m unable to move, stuck firmly to the same place on the mattress. With my nerves on high alert, I glance at the door repeatedly, sure that someone will come bursting through it at any second but the steady thumping of the music downstairs reminds me that no one can hear what is happening in this room. No one cares that Ryan Burke took me, of all people, into a bedroom. That realization hits me suddenly. Oh. My. God. What am I doing here?"

Piper Willow dies the summer after her high school graduation but she doesn’t make it to Heaven or Hell…instead she finds herself in a spiritual terminal called the Station. She’s given only two choices: Return to Earth as the subconscious for a person in need of some outside assistance, or move on and spend an eternity lost in her own sorrow and pain.

Does Piper have what it takes to save a life - to be the nagging voice inside someone else’s head - or will she fail and end up lost and tormented in limbo...forever?

Goodreads Rating: 4.09 with 995 reviews
Genre Listing: Young Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance, Supernatural, Ghosts, Death, Teen, Contemporary
Get the Book:  AmazonBook Depository
My other reviews of Trish Marie Dawson's books: Dying to Remember

Review:

Edited 12/1/2016

Wow. This book is intense and pretty dark. If you can't handle morbid death related things, this book is probably not for you. I, on the other hand, found it absorbing.

The premise of the book is that if a person is depressed and thinking about committing suicide, they get a Volunteer placed in your head. It's the Volunteer's job to make your life better and try to talk the person out of committing suicide. The suicidal person doesn't know the volunteer is in their head, and the volunteer stays there until the person either doesn't need them anymore or commits suicide. If the person ends up dying, they get sent to the station, where they have two choices. Either become a volunteer and try to save lives or spend eternity in their special hell.

In this paranormal book, we meet Piper, who frankly has to deal with a lot of crap no one should have to deal with. She ends up becoming a volunteer, and we follow her through her death, training, and two of her assignments. I felt connected to Piper, and I felt sorry for her. I just wanted to be able to be her friend and talk her through the things she was going through, but once she dies and starts volunteering the book lightens up a little bit (that seems odd to say). It's still pretty dark because it's dealing with death, but Piper's comical while being a volunteer.

I find the premise of this book interesting. I've been interested in death-themed books lately, and this fit in with that. It's a different take on a very dark and controversial subject. Even though it's young adult, I appreciated that Piper went through some tough situations and didn't spend the entire book swooning over boys. As a reader, you get the sense that she genuinely cares about her assignments and wants to help them succeed.  I'm amazed that it's under 200 pages. It leaves a complete story, but at the same time the ending hooked me in, and I want to read the second book- Dying to Remember.

Four out of five moons

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